Centralism, localities and leadership: the politics of the Chinese Socialist Youth League in the early 1920s*

Abstract This article investigates a dramatic change in the leadership of the Chinese Socialist Youth League in early 1924, following a series of ideological and emotional rivalries between young radicals. It explores how the stepping down of Liu Renjing leader of the Youth League reflected the limits of Moscow’s policy in China, as well as the fragility of both Bolshevik iron discipline and the Leninist organizational norms applied by early Chinese communist leaders. The article further argues that the dynamic intersection between emotions and political rationales ultimately influenced how global communism was localized in China in the early 1920s.